BWW Blog: Actor Brendan Cowell On Simon Stone's YERMA at Young Vic

It's funny when people ask an actor "What attracted you to the piece?", because the answer to the question is more than likely "because they offered it to me." I mean, of course there are always exciting things about the ensuing work, but the biggest of them all is always, at least initially, the notion of good old-fashioned plain and simple employment!

In saying that, I am new to this town, and ever since I was but a young and eager thespian type drifting around Sydney with a calico bag full of Pinter's one-act plays I had dreamt of being on the London stage. So when Simon called me up and said "What are you doing June to September, you're not going back to Australia are you maaaaaate?" I was filled with delight. "No, I live here now buddy. Fuck, do I have to do an accent?"

My limited knowledge of Lorca comes purely from a 1995 production of Blood Wedding I worked on at university, but had mostly blanked out due to the fact I wrote the score and so was most likely "highly inspired" throughout the process. But rereading the play very much helps in one's attempt to understand Yerma, as it is alleged Federico saw these plays/poems as two parts of a "trilogy of the Spanish earth", which, sadly, was never completed before his too-early death.

Simon Stone, on the other hand, I am familiar with. Not only is he one of my good mates from home, but a real hero of mine too. I first came into contact with him when he was acting in Aussie film and TV 10 or 15 years ago. A charismatic, gangly type with Jesus Christ good looks, he was a talented actor, but I always sensed with him that there was something else about to explode. I saw the original production of The Wild Duck at Belvoir St Theatre in 2012, and kept returning to it in order to try and work out why the hell it was so brilliant.

I was lucky enough to end up on a few tours of said show, an experience I will cherish forever. Since then, we've collaborated in a few ways. Firstly on a film project, then I played Jean in his version of Miss Julie, which led to us developing a TV version for Sky Atlantic, and now this, playing Juan in his first new show on UK soil.

Back home Simon really created a ruckus with his work of adapting classics - or one could say 'reinventing' classics - for the contemporary stage. He gave Australian theatre a much-needed kick up the buttocks. And like all things fabulous Down Under, the breeze inevitably shifted in the name of tall poppy syndrome (an epidemic we both often find ourselves discussing over a beer from time to time), and Simon decided to take his provocative manifesto abroad. We breed some of the world's great artists in Australia, but we don't often know how to nurture them onwards and upwards.

The thing I love mostly about Simon's work is that it is endlessly brave and often agonizingly truthful. For actors the process is both terrifying and empowering, as the play is created by the team in the rehearsal room and the script often still arriving in preview. It's like a workshop, but in the end, you go on stage in front of the city in which it was written, for and about.

Yerma is a wildly potent piece for today's audience. We live in a world where you can get nearly everything you want at the click of a button. But a baby, well, despite the developments of modern science, the birth of a child rests in the lap of the gods and the process can be both brutal and crippling. When I mention the premise in cafes or in meetings around town it is abundantly clear that IVF, infertility and the alleged 'failure' of life without a baby is a very real and yet ultimately taboo subject.

It's a thrill to be in that wonderful Young Vic environment, where artists all feel welcome and ideas fill the air.

Brendan Cowell appears in Simon Stone's YERMA at the Young Vic 28 July-24 September. Box Office: 0207 922 2922, www.youngvic.org

Photo credit: Johan Persson, pictures taken at Copperfield Rehearsal Rooms SE1

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